BALTIC AND RUSSIAN MODULE SOCHI ADVENTURES

Transcription

1 BALTIC AND RUSSIAN MODULE SOCHI ADVENTURES Title of Scenario Language and level Duration (estimated) Requirements Note Baltic & Russian Module. Sochi adventures A1-A2 (RECEPTIVE COMPETENCE) 4 h Nearly all activities require computers/internet although printed alternatives are possible A Cyrillic alphabet is too high a challenge for you? Start with the module Working on a Luxury Yacht (Task 2. Reading in Cyrillic) to get acquainted with the alphabet SOCHI ADVENTURES The final stop of your voyage is Sochi. Many of the crew members have never been to Russia before and are looking forward to this opportunity. You are going to spend a few days in Sochi. It turns out that a number of things are more challenging than you expected as it is quite difficult to manage if you don't speak Russian. The tasks below present you with some of the challenges. See how many of them you can cope with and who is the most successful team member on 'the Russian shore'. 1. SENDING AN TASK NO. 1 Type of Sending an / Navigating in the Russian Gmail interface task/activities No. of activities 5 Duration 90 minutes Contents Navigating in the Russian Gmail interface Files and links to use 1

2 You haven't been in touch with your friends and family for a while. You have thought about using your phone while ashore but discovered that the roaming rates in Russia are mind-boggling. So, you have decided to use an internet cafe and send a couple of s instead. 1a. Dealing with the browser in Russian It turns out that all software in the internet cafe is in Russian. You start the internet browser ( using an icon on the desktop but the first page doesn't seem familiar at all. Before continuing to Gmail, you stop for a moment to see if there might be some useful information for you. a) Put down your ideas about the information you can see on this page. b) How do you know it is this information? Picture 1. An Internet browser in a Russian internet café 1b. Opening GMAIL in Russian You type in the address bar but this page opens in RU as well. This, however, presents you with no difficulty at all. How do you explain this? From a quick glance at the page, which Russian words or phrases seem the easiest to understand? Which ones are the most difficult? Why? 2

3 Picture 3. Gmail in Russian 1c. Surfing GMAIL in Russian (For this and further tasks students are suggested to use the account password being identical with the name of the project) You enter Gmail and, no surprise, the interface language is Russian. You go to the settings menu and try to change it. This is what you see. You don't have much time to play with settings as you've only paid for 15 min. a) You've got 1 min to spend here. What would you choose? Why? 3

4 Picture 3. Gmail settings menu in Russian. 1d. Understanding GMAIL in Russian It turned out that the computer is configured in such a way that you can't change the settings. Your time is running out, so you should try to cope with RU interface if you want to succeed. a) Find the items in the menu that you might need for your activities online. Circle them and write a corresponding EN word next to them. 4

5 Picture 4. Surfing your s 1e. Writing s You have finally discovered a button for a new . After you hit it, you see a window (below). a) You see only 5 words here and one phrase that consists of two words. Can you understand all of them? b) You are going to write an to your parents and you want to include your brother as BCC. How will you do it? Picture 5. Writing an 5

6 1f. Finding Google Drive In one of the s from a friend you read that she shared a document with you via Google Drive. Unfortunately she didn't include a direct link to it. You remember that the link is somewhere on the top. a) Look at the top menu (below) and decide which of the buttons it might be. b) List up to three ideas as to why you think this might be a link to Google Drive. Justify your ideas. c) Put down two links which are definitely not links to Google Drive. How do you know this? Put down your ideas. Picture 6. Looking for Google Drive. 6

7 2. RENTING A PLACE IN SOCHI TASK NO. 2 Type of Looking through apartment advertisements in Russian task/activities No. of activities 2 Duration 90 minutes Contents Exploring advertisement boards (using snapshots), looking through advertisements that offer an apartment for rent Links used Snapshots taken from After staying in Sochi for a few days you realise that you really like the place and would like to rent a nice place to come back in the summer with your family/friends. On the yacht, you start to research the opportunities for renting a place in Sochi. 2a. Russian announcement board: Step 1 Your Russian friends gave you a website address (see snapshots) where you could find great choice of places to rent. You open the website and you realise that the link leads you to the announcement board which is in only Russian. You decide to give it a try and use your intercomprehension strategies to navigate on the website. Look carefully through the home page of the website. a) Strategy: What information can you understand even without knowing Russian? What helps you to understand it? b) Which link will you need to click on if you want to rent an apartment? 7

8 Picture 1. The announcement board in Russian: Step 1 2b. Russian announcement board: Step 2 When you click on the link leading you to the real-estate you get to the following page. Use the strategies you have already discovered from the task above to retrieve the information from this page. What can you understand? Work with your partner for 10 minutes and make guesses. Compare them with the guesses of your classmates and see who manages to retrieve the most correct information. Did you use any additional special strategies to make your guesses? 8

9 Material 2: The announcement board in Russian: Step 2 2c. Applying selection criteria You managed to find the category which offers apartments for rent. The webpage asks you if you would like to apply selection criteria to select those apartments which interest you most. a) Work with your partner for 10 minutes and try to understand which selection criteria will be important for you and why. Which criteria are offered on the website. b) Strategy: Are there any words that sound similar to words in your mother tongue or any other foreign language you know? Make a list. 9

10 Pictures 3abcd. Applying the selection criteria 10

11 2d. Exploring advertisements After applying for a one-room apartment you are provided with the list of one-room apartments. However, you notice a huge price difference (from 1,500 rubles up to 30,000). a) Look through the descriptions and, first, try to guess the reasons for such a mismatch. Then, try to find the proof in the text that your guesses are correct. b) Use a dictionary to check your guesses (transcripts of the text are provided in the snapshots file). 11

12 Picture 4. Exploring the advertisements Picture 5. Exploring the advertisements 12

13 Picture 6. Exploring the advertisements Picture 7. Exploring the advertisements 2e. Understanding details of the advertisement After running through the list of the apartments you select one with a nice photo and at an acceptable price. a) By this time you have already discovered some strategies on how to orient yourself in the unknown language. Apply these strategies to gather as much information as possible from the webpage and the text. You have 5 minutes to prepare a brief description of the information gathered. Let s see who is the winner in uncovering the unknown language and website. 13

14 b) Make a presentation of your discovery explaining the strategies you used. Picture 8. Making sense of the advertisement 14

15 REFERENCE LIST 1. Yandex Search Engine. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from 2. Google inbox. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from 3. Доска бесплатных объявлений AVITO. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from 15